Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are complicating things and you are the reason why your children need therapy. I am a working mom, and I don't do most of those things. I don't have any picky eaters because my priorities were to raise healthy kids, and not worry about Christmas cards. I don't keep track of anyone's addresses and don't send any cards (I am Christian and cards have nothing to do with Christmas). My kids are in high school and college now and we never had any professional shoots and we don't have a single photo with Santa. We never ever coordinated clothes (this sounds really crazy). I don't track birthdays for extended families, only my own family (my husband, my kids, my parents, and my sibling). I never tracked the school calendar and kids always were responsible for that. They are now pretty independent. We don't keep materials on hand (I hate clutter and I am very minimalistic) and kids learn to be creative when they need to make something last minute. Dentist and pediatrician - my husband chose them from the insurance provider's list and is close to our house. We never used therapists for children. We never chose extracurricular for kids, they were allowed to do what they like. Two kids were accepted into several Ivies. I potty trained them before they reach 1 y.o. and they didn't start daycare until the age of 3. Childcare varied over the years. We have no family around so we had to be very flexible and creative. Kids never had behavior issues. I think kids reflect your mental state, and if you are so anxious about all the things you listed, it is going to affect your kid's mental state a lot. No screen time policy as we never had cable TV or video games. Kids always were active in sport, several varsity teams.

NP here. And wow!
1. You are seriously going to blame PP for her kid's ADHD?! What is this, the 1960s?
2. If your kids are in college, then I don't think you really understand what it's like to have younger kids these days. When my older sister first talked about scheduling activities etc, I thought like you that she was nuts. And now I realize that things just don't work like they used to. Even if an elementary kid wants to play a sport, you have to sign up the day they open...or all of the slots will be gone. The HW load for even Kindergarteners is insane. We vacillate between not enforcing it and not wanting to undermine the teacher. But either way, my 5 y.o. is simply not able to manage this on his own. Neither is my 7 y.o...given how much more work she is given.
3. I don't do most of the stuff the PP talks about either (Christmas cards, matching outfits, etc)...but those aren't really the things that suck up your energy IMHO.

Anonymous wrote:Completely optional. Yes if it's fun for you, no if it's not: Christmas cards, professional photo shoots, coordinating outfits, gifts or cards for extended family and friends, demanding extracurriculars/travel sports, decorating for holidays, travel for pleasure, home renovations, church, fundraisers, school dances/plays/activities/snack/potlucks, supervising homework (for typical children), home improvement, gardening, extra credit, school pictures, PTA.

Somewhat optional, you do you: Gifts or cards for close family/in-laws, volunteer work. Sports, scouting, tutoring (assuming you mean letting a kid take a harder class than they can handle on their own), art/music instruction, clubs. Cultural activities/dining out. Yearbooks.

Technically/possibly optional but skipping them every year would make you a pretty major jerk: Field trips, orthodontia, birthday parties, camps or activities with stringent deadlines, charitable giving,, playdates, entertaining. Birthday, holiday gifts/celebrations for immediate family. Travel to see family, assisting elderly relatives, weddings. Teacher conferences, holiday tips, teacher gifts

Not optional: tracking school calendar, securing child care/aftercare/summer programming, doctor/dental appointments, haircuts, clothes and shoes. Sick days. Forms/paperwork for school. Paying bills, meal planning (or how do you shop, ffs?), grocery shopping, food prep, home/yard maintenance. Cleaning. Covid impacts/quarantines. Therapies, specialized programming -- either not optional or not necessary. Pet care/vet/training if you have a pet, but you're not required to get a pet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Completely optional: Christmas cards, professional photo shoots, coordinating outfits, gifts or cards for extended family and friends, demanding extracurriculars/travel sports, decorating for holidays, travel for pleasure, home renovations

Somewhat optional: Gifts or cards for close family/in-laws, camps or activities with stringent deadlines, charitable giving, volunteer work. Sports, scouting, tutoring, art/music instruction, clubs. Cultural activities/dining out. Pet care/vet/training. Holiday tips, teacher gifts, yearbooks, PTA. Church.

Technically/possibly optional: Field trips, school pictures, orthodontia, birthday parties, fundraisers, school dances/plays/activities/snack/potlucks. Playdates, entertaining. Birthday, holiday gifts/celebrations for immediate family. Travel to see family, assisting elderly relatives, weddings. Supervising homework, teacher conferences, extra credit. Therapies, specialized programming. Home improvement, gardening. Meal planning.

Not optional: tracking school calendar, securing child care/aftercare/summer programming, doctor/dental appointments, haircuts, clothes and shoes. Sick days. Forms/paperwork for school. Paying bills, grocery shopping, food prep, home/yard maintenance. Cleaning. Covid impacts/quarantines.

Um, if you have a pet...I don't htink caring for it is optional. This is why I don't have a pet.

Anonymous wrote:Completely optional: Christmas cards, professional photo shoots, coordinating outfits, gifts or cards for extended family and friends, demanding extracurriculars/travel sports, decorating for holidays, travel for pleasure, home renovations

Somewhat optional: Gifts or cards for close family/in-laws, camps or activities with stringent deadlines, charitable giving, volunteer work. Sports, scouting, tutoring, art/music instruction, clubs. Cultural activities/dining out. Pet care/vet/training. Holiday tips, teacher gifts, yearbooks, PTA. Church.

Technically/possibly optional: Field trips, school pictures, orthodontia, birthday parties, fundraisers, school dances/plays/activities/snack/potlucks. Playdates, entertaining. Birthday, holiday gifts/celebrations for immediate family. Travel to see family, assisting elderly relatives, weddings. Supervising homework, teacher conferences, extra credit. Therapies, specialized programming. Home improvement, gardening. Meal planning.

Not optional: tracking school calendar, securing child care/aftercare/summer programming, doctor/dental appointments, haircuts, clothes and shoes. Sick days. Forms/paperwork for school. Paying bills, grocery shopping, food prep, home/yard maintenance. Cleaning. Covid impacts/quarantines.

Anonymous wrote:
You are complicating things and you are the reason why your children need therapy. I am a working mom, and I don't do most of those things. I don't have any picky eaters because my priorities were to raise healthy kids, and not worry about Christmas cards. I don't keep track of anyone's addresses and don't send any cards (I am Christian and cards have nothing to do with Christmas). My kids are in high school and college now and we never had any professional shoots and we don't have a single photo with Santa. We never ever coordinated clothes (this sounds really crazy). I don't track birthdays for extended families, only my own family (my husband, my kids, my parents, and my sibling). I never tracked the school calendar and kids always were responsible for that. They are now pretty independent. We don't keep materials on hand (I hate clutter and I am very minimalistic) and kids learn to be creative when they need to make something last minute. Dentist and pediatrician - my husband chose them from the insurance provider's list and is close to our house. We never used therapists for children. We never chose extracurricular for kids, they were allowed to do what they like. Two kids were accepted into several Ivies. I potty trained them before they reach 1 y.o. and they didn't start daycare until the age of 3. Childcare varied over the years. We have no family around so we had to be very flexible and creative. Kids never had behavior issues. I think kids reflect your mental state, and if you are so anxious about all the things you listed, it is going to affect your kid's mental state a lot. No screen time policy as we never had cable TV or video games. Kids always were active in sport, several varsity teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not new, and it's not exclusive to DCUM. Who in your household keeps track of birthdays, doctors appointments, clothing sizes, early dismissals, permission slips, camp signups, holiday cards, and meal planning? Does that person also have a paid job?

I do all of this and have a paid job. It's not hard. Why do women seem to struggle with it?

-- Single Dad.

If this isn’t hard for you, you are either superdad or crummy at your job and at parenting.

That’s not right or fair. Sometimes people things “extra hard” - this dad probably doesn’t. Maybe ask him for advice instead of insulting him?

Typo! I meant “people make things”…

I suggested he could be super dad! I didn’t insult him.

But I’ll bite. What’s your meal plan method (I’m assuming you have at least one picky eater; if not, give me suggestions for the too). How do you keep track of addresses for your Christmas cards? Do you do a professional shoot for your Christmas card photos or just take the photos yourself? How do you coordinate Christmas card clothing? How do you keep track of birthdays for extended families? How do you decide what to get them? Do you go through the school calendar at the beginning of the year and sync that to your calendar, or do you do it monthly? Do you keep materials on hand for last minute school projects or do you make a last-minute target run? How did you choose your kids’ dentist? Their pediatrician? How would you choose a therapist for them? Woukd you put them on a king waiting list for one that takes your insurance or pay out of pocket? How did you choose which extracurriculars your kid does? Do you expose them to lots or just sign them up for what they ask for? When do you go through and make sure your kids have the clothing size they need? Do you just deal with that as it comes up or do it regularly every season? What potty training method did you use, or did you let daycare take care of that? What do you do for childcare and how did you settle on that? How do you deal with behavioral issues and do you scan your kids for symptoms mental issues like ADHD? What do you look for? What is your plan for elder care when the time comes? What is your screen time policy and how did you settle on that? Do your kids get regular exercise and time outside?

If im complicating any of this, by all means, let me know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing. Dead weight. Many women are married to men who don’t engage with their kids, don’t handle any finances, don’t cook or clean, don’t help with picking pediatricians or therapists or summer camps or whatever. You sound like a great dad. Surely you must know it’s not the norm.

You say your wife was a SAHM for a time when the kids were little, that she probably handled potty training. Well another thing you must realize about the posters being hostile is that they are in that phase now, or close to it. They might be SAHMs who don’t feel appreciated (presumably you appreciated your wife when she did this, you sound like someone with good relationships skills). Many of the hostile posters are working moms who are doing a lot of the SAHM stuff, have deadweight husbands, and have jobs. It’s a lot. It’s different when kids are older. Yes, there’s a mental load but as you demonstrate, you can share it with your kids if you e done a good job giving them independence. It’s been a while since you experienced young kids, and it sounds like your wife handled a lot of that. So people are annoyed by the “it’s not hard” comments from you — you are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, some husbands are not only dead weight but an added burden. They have undiagnosed ADHD or personality disorders or just… issues. And their wives are accommodating that while also doing most/all the housework and childcare. If you’ve never been married to someone like this it’s hard to explain. It increases the mental load in exponential ways. Your spouse becomes like another child, only one who is hostile to your attempts to help because he often is embarrassed and defensive about his issues and wants to pretend they aren’t happening.

Again, you seem like a great dad. Your girls are lucky. I’m sorry your wife passed. You should be proud of the family you’ve built. But you don’t know what others are going through. You don’t understand because you’ve not been in the same situation. Not all parenting experiences are the same. Sometimes you just have to listen and realize you only have the answers for your questions. You haven’t solved marriage, or parenting, or life. Accept that others may struggle in ways that seem foreign to you, and that does not automatically mean they are doing it wrong.

Be that as it may, the point remains that a lot of this whining about “mental loads” is self-inflicted dysfunction, likely internalized by what they think they *should* be doing.

I also reject your assertion that the disengaged dad is the norm. I will not concede that for a minute. It certainly isn’t my experience with my circle of
Dad, ie my poker buddies. It’s actually more of a cliche and a trope. You hear it here because people with axes to grind are whining — do not confuse that with the norm. Sucks to be them, but they are the ones having deviances from the norm.

Also, there is a heavy bias toward what contributions to family life should be valued or “count” as mental load. But you are insane if you are going to assert with a straight fact that the mental load of remembering to send a nephew a gift is the same as being sure the mortgage is paid or retaining job security more broadly. Or the mental load of many other things martyr moms don’t value but are every bit as important if not more so than the relatively insignificant things they obsess about, often because they feel pressure to be in competition with other women in their communities.

Sure, remembering to pay the mortgage and other bills is a mental load! That's a great example because it's one task that's gotten a lot easier over the years. I am old enough to have had to sit down wih checkbook, stamps and a calendar, working out when to mail certain bills so the money would be in my account but also get the envelopes through the mail on time. Now we can schedule the mortgage payment and other bills easily, but signing up for camp is much more complicated (plan out the weeks, coordinate with friends, create account, sign up the day/time that registration opens, get health forms signed and uploaded, etc. etc.) Is camp as important in the long run as paying the mortgage? Of course not, but assuming your family isn't scrambling to keep a roof over your heads, then maybe someone needs to figure out what to do with the children over the summer.

Like you, I know many engaged and involved dads, but for whatever reason it's always the moms who are doing this kind of organizing behind the scenes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing. Dead weight. Many women are married to men who don’t engage with their kids, don’t handle any finances, don’t cook or clean, don’t help with picking pediatricians or therapists or summer camps or whatever. You sound like a great dad. Surely you must know it’s not the norm.

You say your wife was a SAHM for a time when the kids were little, that she probably handled potty training. Well another thing you must realize about the posters being hostile is that they are in that phase now, or close to it. They might be SAHMs who don’t feel appreciated (presumably you appreciated your wife when she did this, you sound like someone with good relationships skills). Many of the hostile posters are working moms who are doing a lot of the SAHM stuff, have deadweight husbands, and have jobs. It’s a lot. It’s different when kids are older. Yes, there’s a mental load but as you demonstrate, you can share it with your kids if you e done a good job giving them independence. It’s been a while since you experienced young kids, and it sounds like your wife handled a lot of that. So people are annoyed by the “it’s not hard” comments from you — you are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, some husbands are not only dead weight but an added burden. They have undiagnosed ADHD or personality disorders or just… issues. And their wives are accommodating that while also doing most/all the housework and childcare. If you’ve never been married to someone like this it’s hard to explain. It increases the mental load in exponential ways. Your spouse becomes like another child, only one who is hostile to your attempts to help because he often is embarrassed and defensive about his issues and wants to pretend they aren’t happening.

Again, you seem like a great dad. Your girls are lucky. I’m sorry your wife passed. You should be proud of the family you’ve built. But you don’t know what others are going through. You don’t understand because you’ve not been in the same situation. Not all parenting experiences are the same. Sometimes you just have to listen and realize you only have the answers for your questions. You haven’t solved marriage, or parenting, or life. Accept that others may struggle in ways that seem foreign to you, and that does not automatically mean they are doing it wrong.

Be that as it may, the point remains that a lot of this whining about “mental loads” is self-inflicted dysfunction, likely internalized by what they think they *should* be doing.

I also reject your assertion that the disengaged dad is the norm. I will not concede that for a minute. It certainly isn’t my experience with my circle of
Dad, ie my poker buddies. It’s actually more of a cliche and a trope. You hear it here because people with axes to grind are whining — do not confuse that with the norm. Sucks to be them, but they are the ones having deviances from the norm.

Also, there is a heavy bias toward what contributions to family life should be valued or “count” as mental load. But you are insane if you are going to assert with a straight fact that the mental load of remembering to send a nephew a gift is the same as being sure the mortgage is paid or retaining job security more broadly. Or the mental load of many other things martyr moms don’t value but are every bit as important if not more so than the relatively insignificant things they obsess about, often because they feel pressure to be in competition with other women in their communities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm hearing this term so much on this board recently. There's a thread about how women are unhappy in their marriages because of the unequal distribution of the "mental load" with their husbands. Another thread in the Family section describes how stressful the holidays are because of the "mental load." And on and on. I've never heard this term until a few months back on this site. Is this just a new buzzword?

I wouldn’t say it’s new at all, but it certainly something that is being more recognized, especially since so much of the COVID burden fell (again, disproportionately) on women.

Anonymous wrote:
Be that as it may, the point remains that a lot of this whining about “mental loads” is self-inflicted dysfunction, likely internalized by what they think they *should* be doing.

I also reject your assertion that the disengaged dad is the norm. I will not concede that for a minute. It certainly isn’t my experience with my circle of
Dad, ie my poker buddies. It’s actually more of a cliche and a trope. You hear it here because people with axes to grind are whining — do not confuse that with the norm. Sucks to be them, but they are the ones having deviances from the norm.

Also, there is a heavy bias toward what contributions to family life should be valued or “count” as mental load. But you are insane if you are going to assert with a straight fact that the mental load of remembering to send a nephew a gift is the same as being sure the mortgage is paid or retaining job security more broadly. Or the mental load of many other things martyr moms don’t value but are every bit as important if not more so than the relatively insignificant things they obsess about, often because they feel pressure to be in competition with other women in their communities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not new, and it's not exclusive to DCUM. Who in your household keeps track of birthdays, doctors appointments, clothing sizes, early dismissals, permission slips, camp signups, holiday cards, and meal planning? Does that person also have a paid job?

I do all of this and have a paid job. It's not hard. Why do women seem to struggle with it?

-- Single Dad.

If this isn’t hard for you, you are either superdad or crummy at your job and at parenting.

Do you always think in such binary terms?

I'm no "superdad" but I am a good, if imperfect one.

I'm a top performer at work in a senior executive role.

My kids are older teens now and I've taught them to take on more responsibility for themselves. They make their own doctors and dental appointments now, for example and even go alone unless I am required to be there because they are minors. They know the birthdays of their family members. They also know when bills are due (contribute to their phone and car insurance expenses) and each kid prepares one family meal per week (DD1 has Tuesdays and DD2 does Thursdays).

I guided DD1 on college applications, but served more as a consultant and adviser -- she did it all herself.

DD2 initiated her driving behind the wheel tests.

If they need permission slips or early dismissals, they talk to me and we get it done.

Again, some of this is tedious, but it's not really HARD, let alone mentally taxing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard of "2nd Shift," which explains the extra work women take on at home. I have also heard of "cognitive load theory," which is the amount of new learning or new information a learner can process at one time.

"Mental load" sounds like DCUM wives realizing their DHs might have some "executive functioning" issues. That's not unusual for a region of the country where people wait so long to marry and start a family.

No, it actually means the "mental" part, as opposed to the "execution" part. It's even less quantifiable than second shift, which usually means cooking, cleaning and childcare. "Mental load" is the planning, remembering, researching, delegating. Worrying. The feeling that's described as having "too many tabs open." You know it if you've experienced it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mental load placed on women is perpetuated by gender-based expectations of a variety of parties, from parents, to health care providers to school staff, which always call the mother any time there is a problem at school.

If you aren’t smart enough to give them only your spose’s name and number, you deserve it

They have both, as they should.